Hepatocyte-tumor cell interaction in vitro. I. Conditions for rosette formation and inhibition by anti-H-2 antibody.

Murine hepatocytes, isolated by an in situ collagenase-perfusion technique and cultured in Petri dishes, were shown to form rosettes with liver-metastasizing syngeneic tumor cells. Pretreatment of the tumor cells with neuraminidase generally increased the binding, whereas pretreatment of the liver cells with neuraminidase abolished the binding completely. The tumor-cell binding may be mediated by the previously described lectin-like receptor of hepatocytes that also was sensitive to neuraminidase treatment and that bound desialylated cells better than normal cells. Anti-H-2 sera could efficiently inhibit the rosette formation of metastatic tumor cells with the hepatocytes, which points to a possible role of H-2 molecules in this interaction of neoplastic and normal cells.